It's really hard to genuinely compare a sci fi comedy adventure with a sci fi drama adventure.
Orville gets the comedy right, nails it IMO. but when it tries to tackle a dramatic issue, it really falls flat on the drama and issue part.
The entire episode with Bortis' kid was just... so much bad logic, so many things not well thought out that didn't make much sense. There were some things that made a lot of sense but way too much of the logic involved was just... poor.
That being said, we haven't gotten a Discovery episode like that for me to compare yet but I have a funny feeling that the writers here are going to make a script that makes a little more sense, albeit far less funny.